Torrington Mayor Ryan Bingham strives to find the 'right' candidate to fill his seat as he winds down his term

By Kate Hartman

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Torrington >> After announcing that he will not seek a fourth term as Torrington's mayor in a press conference on Monday, Mayor Ryan Bingham's focus is on the months ahead.

As he told the group of family, staff and public at the conference, "It's going to be an eventful summer." Bingham will remain in office through the end of the year, when he will finish his eight year tenure.

An important part of the coming months will be helping his party find the best candidate to run in the November elections. It is not a requirement of the mayor to assist with the process but Bingham said he believes it's a requirement of his own personal beliefs.

"I don't need to find a replacement. I could technically pull the chute and go but that's not who I am," said Bingham. "I intend on living here for the rest of my life so it's incumbent on me. I feel it's my duty to help in any way possible to try to find a good candidate. I don't think I need to find someone who can just win, but to be able to do the job that needs to be done."

That job, in Bingham's opinion, is putting the town above politics.

At the press conference he said over the last seven and a half years he has put the job over everything else in his life.

"That's not necessary in a mayor, but it was for me," said Bingham. "It will take a special person to fill this position, and I'm not saying it needs to be somebody exactly like me, but it needs to be someone who has the heart for Torrington and that doesn't come with any predispositions and biases that may sway their decisions."

Bingham believes it was those qualities that got him elected in 2005. At the time, it took people a while to get over his youth. He was 22 when he was first elected, making him one of the youngest mayors in the state's history.

He knocked on doors every day after he received the republican party's endorsement, and he said that public opinion started to change when people saw, "that I was someone who truly did care about the community and wanted to give back and I was going to come with no previous bias. I had the energy to do the job right, etcetera."

Bingham speculates that he knocked on between 6,000 and 8,000 doors during that first campaign, and he handed out 10,000 palm cards.

"I saw a change. For the first few months, when I was knocking on doors, there was a lot of hesitation. By the end, people were saying, 'Oh I'm voting for you. My neighbor told me about you. I'm glad you stopped by.'"

He was confident he would win that first election, but not everyone was. He defeated incumbent Democrat Owen Quinn in a surprising result.

After that, Bingham continued to win the seat by a large margin, over 70 percent in each subsequent election.

Of the coming November election, Bingham said he is confident he could have won had he chosen to run, which ties into his reasoning for sharing his decision shortly after he made it.

Technically, he did not have to make a formal decision about running till the beginning of July. He said he wanted to declare early to give everyone as much time as possible to find candidates.

"The timing of it is good because in my mind now both sides have the opportunity to find a good candidate, not some person they're just going to throw up," said Bingham, and for the Republican Town Committee, "it gives us a lot of time to find the right candidate."

At the time of Bingham's announcement, Republican Town Committee Vice President Greg Cogswell said it will be very important who runs next for the city. He anticipated a lot of interest over the coming weeks now that Bingham has said he won't run.

Similarly on the Democratic Town Committee, Chairman Glenn McLeod said he knows of three to four people who are interested in running.

"The mayor was there a long time and he was well liked in the community," McLeod said at the time. "It was hard for people to run against him. Now it's a whole new game."

"I think that's a good thing that there's people who are interested now who weren't before," said Bingham.

He thinks there are many people both in the current political system and within Torrington who would make good mayors.

"I'm not looking first for political insiders or somebody who serves as an elected official now. We need to find the best of the best. We do have some great elected officials and they may very well be the next mayor. I want to make sure I catch everybody," said Bingham.

Whoever the next mayor is, Bingham said he hopes they carry on some of the new initiatives he created during his tenure like the downtown marketing initiative, the infrastructure projects and the way he has been compiling budgets to keep things streamlined and efficient.

As for him, his number one priority is to stay in Torrington.

"I love this community," said Bingham. "Even if I didn't win the first time, that would have always been my priority, to stay here in Torrington."

With a laugh, he said he foresees going to his future child's little league games and serving on the PTO.

For now, he doesn't have any solid plans about future jobs. He joked that he will have to work on his resume. He did say that the public servant part of him isn't going anywhere and he hopes to stay in the public realm in some way.